Galadriel and the Fall of Gandalf

It's that woman again

My last post looked at Celeborn's famously poor showing as the wisest of the Elves of Middle-earth. Here I want to take a quick look at Galadriel in the same scene.

When all the guests were seated before his chair the Lord looked at them again. 'Here there are eight,' he said. 'Nine were to set out: so said the messages. But maybe there has been some change of counsel that we have not heard. Elrond is far away, and darkness gathers between us, and all this year the shadows have grown longer.'

'Nay, there was no change of counsel,' said the Lady Galadriel speaking for the first time. Her voice was clear and musical, but deeper than woman's wont. 'Gandalf the Grey set out with the Company, but he did not pass the borders of this land. Now tell us where he is; for I much desired to speak with him again. But I cannot see him from afar, unless he comes within the fences of Lothlorien: a grey mist is about him, and the ways of his feet and of his mind are hidden from me.'

'Alas!' said Aragorn. 'Gandalf the Grey fell into shadow. He remained in Moria and did not escape.'

(FR 2.vii.355)

From the very first we can see that she perceives more than he does, not in the sense that she may be wiser or more intelligent than he is, but the juxtaposition of his words and hers suggests that her perceptions take in a wider world, at least as far as Gandalf is concerned. Celeborn and Galadriel do not share altogether the same frame of reference. She speaks of Gandalf as if she can still somehow sense him. She does not know where he is, or what he is thinking, but he is still out there somewhere. 

That Gandalf is 'hidden' in 'a grey mist' is an enticing detail, since when Frodo looks into Galadriel's mirror later in this same chapter, he twice sees a mist: first one that clears to reveal to him a vision of the Sea (FR 2.vii.364), which hobbits, mistakenly, regard as 'a token of death' (FR Pr. 7); and then he sees a 'small ship, twinkling with lights' 'pass away' into 'a grey mist' (FR 2.vii.364). That ship of course is the same one Frodo dreams (or has a vision) of in Fog on the Barrow-Downs (FR 1.viii.135), and upon which he sails into the West in The Grey Havens (RK 6.ix.1030). And in both of these passages the farthest shore is at first obscured by 'a grey rain-curtain'. 

What comes next in this scene is also intriguing. For Galadriel says not a word in response to Aragorn's euphemistic announcement of Gandalf's death. In fact she says nothing at all until he tells the tale up to their arrival at the bridge and the coming of the Balrog. When she does speak, it is to pull Celeborn back from his hasty remarks, to reaffirm that none of Gandalf's deeds were 'needless', and to greet with 'love and understanding' the member of the Company who has in fact suffered the most, Gimli, who has endured the loss of Balin and the dwarves of Moria, has seen his people's worst nightmare drag Gandalf into the abyss, and has so far met a rather hostile reception in Lothlórien (FR 2.vii.356). Is it an accident that she proceeds immediately from this to a statement that directly touches upon her wider perceptions and then to a demonstration of them?

'But even now there is hope left. I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be. But this I will say to you: your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.' 

And with that word she held them with her eyes, and in silence looked searchingly at each of them in turn. None save Legolas and Aragorn could long endure her glance. Sam quickly blushed and hung his head. 

At length the Lady Galadriel released them from her eyes, and she smiled. 'Do not let your hearts be troubled,' she said. 'Tonight you shall sleep in peace.' Then they sighed and felt suddenly weary, as those who have been questioned long and deeply, though no words had been spoken openly.

(FR 2.vii.357, emphasis mine)

Her statement that she can 'avail' only through her knowledge of the past, the present, and 'in part' the future gives an authority none question to what she says about the hope and the precariousness of their quest. But note also that Galadriel does not say that she knows what may, or what might, or even what will be. She states that she knows some of what shall be. Shall is at least emphatic, and at most denotes necessity. Thus Galadriel here speaks not of possibilities, but of certainties. Yet we can also see her phrase 'in part' reflected in her later remarks about what one may see of the future in her Mirror:

'For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell.'

(2.vii.362)

'Remember that the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them.'

(2.vii.363)

this is beginning to look like an obsession

But for all the caution with which she warns against the indeterminacy of a future which is always in motion, there is something of which she is quite sure, as her use of shall attests. What can Galadriel mean? I believe we need to see her hint that she still perceives Gandalf in context with Gwaihir's statement to Gandalf that Galadriel had sent him looking for him (TT 3.v.502), which in turn leads to a question: why send an eagle to look for someone who had fallen to his death in a profound abyss beneath a mountain range? I would suggest that the future which Galadriel knew in part was Gandalf's death at the hands of the Balrog atop Zirakzigil and his return as Gandalf the White. (Recall that Frodo also sees Gandalf the White without realizing it in the Mirror -- 2.vii.363-64). It was only when Aragorn brought word of his fall at the bridge that she became certain, and stepped in to help keep the Company from straying too far before he returned. A look at the chronology presented in The Tale of Years is revealing here.

January

15. The Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and fall of Gandalf. The Company reaches Nimrodel             late at night.

17. The Company comes to Caras Galadhon at evening.

23. Gandalf pursues the Balrog to the peak of Zirak-zigil.

25. He casts down the Balrog, and passes away. His body lies on the peak.

February

15.* The Mirror of Galadriel. Gandalf returns to life, and lies in a trance.

16. Farewell to Lórien. Gollum in hiding on the west bank observes the departure.

17. Gwaihir bears Gandalf to Lórien.

(RK App. B 1092)

The first thing we may notice is that Galadriel's initial perception that Gandalf was 'hidden' was more accurate than what the Company had actually seen with their own eyes. She learned of his fall when she met the Company on 17 January, but Gandalf did not die until the 25^th. It also seems hardly coincidental that the day on which he returned to life is also the day on which Galadriel brought Frodo and Sam to the Mirror and told them it is time for the Company to move on (FR 2.vii.366).* The facts of the story almost invite us to conclude that Galadriel kept the Company in Lothlórien, 'in the ageless time of that land where days bring healing and not decay' (TT 3.v.503), until Gandalf revived; only then did she send them on their way, rested and recovered from the shock of the loss they thought they had suffered, and tested in ways that prepared them all, even perhaps Boromir**, to be the right people in the right place at the right time.

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*Hammond and Scull (2005) 718, point out that editions prior to 2005 wrongly dated the Mirror episode to 14 February, which does not match the events as described in the text. The episode takes place 'one evening' (2.vii.360), and Galadriel tells Frodo and Sam the Company must depart 'in the morning' (366). Directly after she says this, at the beginning of the next chapter, we read 'That night the Company was again summoned to the chamber of Celeborn' (2.viii.367). The demonstrative that and the adverb again can together refer only to the same evening as in The Mirror of Galadriel. Since the morning on which the Company departs is 16 February, and there is no evidence for an extra day, 15, not 14, February must be the correct date. This has no effect on my argument, but readers with an edition from before 2005 might note a discrepancy that needs to be explained.

**This may seem surprising, but it may be that by confronting Boromir with the temptation he felt to take and use the Ring Galadriel actually saved him. The self-knowledge she gave him created a conflict within him that came to a head on the slopes of Amon Hen. Without that knowledge or that conflict, he could never have pulled himself back and repented for his failed attempt to take the Ring from Frodo. His successful repentance forms an interesting counterpoint to Gollum's failed repentance. So I guess I've just thought up another article. You know, I'm convinced that at the end of one of these veins of mithril is a Balrog. 

Getting to the Bottom of Celeborn

'An evil of the Ancient World it seemed, such as I have never seen before,' said Aragorn. 'It was both a shadow and a flame, strong and terrible.' 

'It was a Balrog of Morgoth,' said Legolas; 'of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.' 

'Indeed I saw upon the bridge that which haunts our darkest dreams – I saw Durin's Bane,' said Gimli in a low voice, and dread was in his eyes. 

'Alas!' said Celeborn. 'We long have feared that under Caradhras a terror slept. But had I known that the Dwarves had stirred up this evil in Moria again, l would have forbidden you to pass the northern borders, you and all that went with you. And if it were possible, one would say that at the last Gandalf fell from wisdom into folly, going needlessly into the net of Moria.' 

'He would be rash indeed that said that thing,' said Galadriel gravely. 'Needless were none of the deeds of Gandalf in life.'

(FR 2.vii.356)

Oh, darn, another image of Cate Blanchett

For his words here Celeborn earns a gentle rebuke from Galadriel. Her words are third person (he) rather than second (you), and all very politely subjunctive, 'would be' rather than 'is/are', leading to a generalization about a type of person ('that said') rather than a precise comment about a specific individual ('who said').  As such, Galadriel's statement neatly answers the two unreal conditional statements ('had I known.... And if it were possible') with which Celeborn responded to the news of the balrog and the death of Gandalf. In essence, she is saying that Celeborn, appearances notwithstanding, is not the sort of person who would say such things.

And though he accepts her reproof and apologizes at once, readers have been far less forgiving than Galadriel and the members of the Company. Indeed Celeborn is seen as something of a dolt, whose folly here wholly belies Galadriel's statement, only a few moment later, that he is 'accounted the wisest of the Elves of Middle-earth' (FR 2.vii.357). Since he plays little other role, and since the attention shifts almost completely to Galadriel, the rashness of his remarks, spoken 'in the trouble of my heart', is never redeemed. We never get to see the wisdom of which Galadriel speaks. So, readers have long wondered just what it is she's talking about. Indeed Celeborn's wisdom seems chiefly to consist in having married Galadriel.

and another one!

His words and his apology, I would argue, are meant to have a different and a greater effect than a first glance suggests. They aim to reveal how frightening a balrog is, even to the wisest Elf and to indicate how troubling the fall of Gandalf is with the fate of Middle-earth hanging in the balance. Consider the reaction of the otherwise dauntless Legolas, whom the balrog so 'filled...with terror' that he dropped his arrow and cried out in 'dismay and fear' (FR 2.v.329). By contrast, when the Company later encounters the winged Nazgûl the 'sudden dread' Legolas and the others feel does not prevent him from shooting it from the sky just as 'suddenly' (FR 2.ix.387). Aragorn himself, moreover, calls the balrog 'terrible', which he means quite literally, that is to say, it inspires terror; and to Gimli it is Durin's Bane, a race-nightmare of which he speaks with 'dread in his eyes.' It was, as Gandalf said, 'a foe beyond any' of them, and its power posed a serious challenge to his own (FR 2.v.327, 329-331). Small wonder, then, that at the bridge he chose to declare himself.

We must also recall that Aragorn seems to have broken off his account at 'the coming of the Terror,' that is, before the battle at the bridge, in order describe the balrog. This exactly parallels the narrative of events, which pauses to do the same once the balrog comes into view. (FR 2.v.329-330). The Terror which so dismays Legolas that his courage briefly falters at that moment, has its match in the lapse of Celeborn's wisdom in this one. It may also be, given Aragorn's apparent pause in telling the tale, that Celeborn does not yet know that Gandalf threw the balrog down into the abyss, apparently killing it. He may know only that Gandalf saved his companions and perished himself. His '[h]ad I known that the Dwarves had stirred up this evil in Moria again' makes more sense if he does not know that the balrog also fell.  If Gandalf is dead and a balrog is on the loose, that would be a very troubling situation indeed. Nor is Celeborn alone in questioning the wisdom of entering Moria. Aragorn also thought it folly, and warned Gandalf against it (FR 2.iii.286-87; iv.297; vi.333).

But if a close reading provides us a context in which Celeborn does not seem entirely dim, we still never encounter any evidence that allows us to consider him 'the wisest of the Elves of Middle-earth.' If anything, the surefooted grace with which Galadriel steps in to save the situation, gently but firmly correcting her husband and simultaneously winning the heart of a 'glowering' Gimli with her generosity and charm, makes her appear wiser by far than Celeborn.  And everything we see of her hereafter tends only to reinforce this opinion of her wisdom: her power in creating Lothlórien and defending it from Sauron, her humility in refusing the Ring when Frodo freely offers it, and her willingness to let all she loves fade in defense of all else.  In short nothing Celeborn does or says, and nothing anyone else says of him, allows us to reconcile Galadriel's description of him with the impression he initially creates in the reader of not being particularly wise at all.

In part, as I have said, this has to do with the subtlety of the context, which would of course have been plain as day to the man who wrote it. An author's intent is not always perfectly realized on the page; and even if it is, it is not always fully or easily appreciated by readers. In part it also has to do with the way the text developed. Once introduced into the narrative the Lady of Lothlórien quickly became more important than the Lord (The Treason of Isengard 233-66). The combination of the subtlety of the context and the transition from Lord to Lady did Celeborn no favors. 

Yet there may be one more small aspect of the portrayal of Celeborn and Galadriel that we need to consider briefly. It's possible that Tolkien was having a bit of fun with us. We have seen him do this before. At FR 2.iv.298 we have seen him play with the tale of Odin being swallowed by Fenris Wolf. At 1.x.171 he plays with Shakespeare's 'fair is foul and foul is fair' in contrasting the apparent and the real characters of Strider (Macbeth 1.i.10). At TT 4.viii.714 he plays with 'the lean and hungry look' of Cassius in Julius Caesar (1.2.193-96). In larger and more forceful ways at TT 3.iv.484-87, ix.564-69 and RK 5.vi.840-42 he amuses himself with 'Birnam Wood' and 'none of woman born' (Macbeth 4.1.95-96, 108-110; 5.5.31-36, 8.9-16).  I would also argue that the vision of the Kings and Chieftains of the Dúnedain which Bombadil conjures for the hobbits (FR 1.viii.145-46) owes much to the third prophecy -- the vision of the line of Stuart Kings (Macbeth 4.116-140) -- in that same scene in Macbeth which gives us Birnam Wood and 'none of woman born'. But it is never a mere echo of Shakespeare or Norse Myth. Gandalf is not Odin. Strider is not Macbeth. Gollum is not just thin as starvation, but no more to be trusted than Cassius. The wood really does march to war. And the Witch-king is slain by two people, one not a Man, and the other not a man. 

So where might we find a fairy queen in an enchanted wood who is mistaken about the wisdom of her beloved? In A Midsummer Night's Dream of course, where Titania, under an enchantment, falls in love with Bottom. 'Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful', she tells him (3.1.140). Since Puck has just given Bottom, 'the shallowest thickskin of that barren sort' (3.2.13), the head of an ass, Titania is clearly out of her reckoning. Bottom is of course neither wise nor Titania's husband, but Titania's folly is also brief and presently Oberon, her spouse, recalls her to her senses.

Of the points I have made here the one I am most serious about, and most convinced of its value, is the first part of the point about the context in which we need to read this scene. The second part, about the seeming pause in Aragorn's account has to contend with the quite reasonable objection that Celeborn asked to be told 'the full tale', and Aragorn seems to set out to do just that. While I believe that it can contend with that objection, not everyone may be convinced.  And I do think that Tolkien probably is having a bit of fun here, playing Titania and Bottom against Galadriel and Celeborn, but if so it is a mere whiff of a joke meant to underscore the seriously troubling situation that Celeborn believes confronts him.*

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*I will admit that this connection between Tolkien and Shakespeare actually came to me in a dream on or about Midsummer. Blame it on Puck then.